this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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I like how it's suddenly a problem only when they do this to Americans for a change.
FISA stands for "Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act." By definition, it's only supposed to be used in the surveillance of people foreign to the U.S.A. The FBI's job is domestic law enforcement. It's the FBI's job to investigate crime involving U.S. citizens.
Officially, the NSA does not spy on U.S. citizens. You can believe whatever you want about whether it actually "unofficially" does, but unless you do a lot of business overseas, chances are high that Google and Amazon and Facebook all have collected way more personal information about you than the NSA has.
Even if the NSA does surveil U.S. citizens, it can't use any information it obtains in any legal or political way, or in any otherwise public manner.
If a U.S. citizen has communications with a foreigner, however, it is possible that those communications will be surveilled. The NSA does spy on foreign citizens, just like foreign intelligence agencies spy on U.S. citizens. If you're a U.S. citizen communicating with a foreigner who's being surveilled, then your communications with that person are going to be surveilled as well.
But again, it's not the FBI's job to police international crime -- that's the job of the CIA. As the article describes, this is why it is a bad idea for the FBI to be using FISA intelligence. This is why "it's a problem when they do it to Americans."
Interesting, thanks for this context! Then if I understand correctly FBI spied on a USA citizen but in an international matter. So it's not really relevant that one party was a USA citizen: what is relevant is that since the other party wasn't, so it wasn't FBI's job. Did it get it right?
Yes, that sounds right, except that I think it really is relevant that one party was a U.S. citizen.
There are strict laws against the U.S. government surveilling U.S. citizens without a warrant. By using FISA information gathered through warrantless foreign surveillance, the FBI appeared to be taking a backdoor around those laws.